


Night Vale Poetry Week

by leiascully



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Beyonce - Freeform, Big Rico's Pizza, Graffiti, Multi, Night Vale Community Radio, Poetry, Revolution, The Moonlite All-Nite Diner
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-12-01
Updated: 2014-08-05
Packaged: 2018-01-03 04:51:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 39
Words: 9,762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1065975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leiascully/pseuds/leiascully
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection, slightly eclectic, worn at the edges.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Scene: Night Vale

**Author's Note:**

> Timeline: N/A  
> A/N: All of the snippets that didn't belong anywhere else ended up here.

Night Vale: it fades in and out like a radio station, crackling through the still, warm desert air.


	2. Carlos (I)

Carlos at sixteen with his curls tumbling across his face. Carlos at seventeen purposefully sweeping his hair over his eyes, to make a shade from beneath which he glances at the other boys. Carlos at nineteen, with a hypothesis, gathering evidence under the mistletoe, pressed between his tipsy best friend and his best friend's girlfriend.

Carlos, unashamed. Carlos, precise. Carlos, self-reliant. Carlos, cooking pozole with a textbook in his other hand. 

Carlos at thirty-five with a distracted expression. The numbers dance in front of his unfocused eyes. The whiff of lavender from his chewing gum clings to his lab coat. Someone turns the radio on and he relaxes, suddenly, and everything starts to come together.

Carlos, perfect. Carlos, perfectly imperfect.


	3. The Hollow Men (a love song)

Let us go then, you and I, when the evening is spread out across the ~~sky~~ void like a patient etherized upon a table _waiting for the application of mandatory gills_


	4. The Desert Flower Bowling Alley and Arcade Fun Complex

The thump and skirl of balls spooling down the lanes at the Desert Flower Bowling Alley and Arcade Fun Complex. The subtle thud of disappointment, deep in the gutter. The hollow crash of pins sent flying. The rattle as the mechanism sweeps them back. The whisper of slick soles gliding over waxed floors. The click and groan over plastic chairs set rocking against their bolts. 

It's music. The Desert Flower Bowling Alley and Arcade Fun Complex Hour is the second most popular show on Night Vale Community Radio, after Welcome to Night Vale. Thousands tune in, heads nodding in semi-synchronicity, holding their breath in anticipation of a strike, a spare. The whole town sighs as the ball whispers past a split without touching a pin. 

And in the Desert Flower Bowling Alley and Arcade Fun Complex, the song goes on. The balls come up through the belly of the machine, regurgitated heavily into the track, waiting to be hefted, waiting to skid over the slick-waxed floor. Jeremy Godwin eats a plate of wings, licking the vinegary sauce from his tingling fingertips. The bite of the sauce lingers in the air, cutting through the waft of stale beer and the scent of shoes worn by many feet. Teddy Williams leafs through _The New England Journal of Medicine_. The CAUTION tape across lane five flutters in an impossible breeze. 

Cecil, dark head bent close to Josie's silver one, whispers. There is more than one war brewing in Night Vale. 

Somewhere above the building, a helicopter throbs. The monitors crackle momentarily with static. THEY. ARE. HERE. And then the names are restored. The scores are tallied. 

Strike.


	5. Cecil Gershwin Palmer (I)

Cecil  
Gershwin  
Palmer  
Whose grandfather talked code  
and made the world safe for democracy  
because the white devil he knew was better  
despite what he'd destroyed  
than the white devil he didn't  
and his allies blown in on the divine wind  
who would watch the world burn  
this land is your land  
this land is my land  
(and one night, on the radio, he heard  
something that reminded him of the void  
which was as always partially stars  
and someone said it was called "Rhapsody  
In Blue" and he never forgot)  
And so Cecil grew up trusting   
the radio and sometimes late   
at night he thinks he hears   
his grandfather's voice murmuring  
underneath all the numbers  
on the all-numbers station

## CECIL GERSHWIN PALMER

Whose name was inscribed  
on the tablets at City Hall, his future  
graven, with serifs, unalterable, inevitable

 

Cecil Gershwin Palmer: mountain denialist   
(despite his mother's admonitions)  
(despite his grandfather's stories)  
(despite his dreams of four mountains)  
(a reporter needs evidence)  
(that's the first thing a reporter needs)

Cecil  
who had a mother  
who had a brother  
who had a father  
who had cousins  
aunts and uncles  
once  
and then had himself  
without even a reflection  
for company  
who had for so long only  
this voice  
and your ears


	6. My name is Mayor Pamela Winchell

I met a traveler from ~~an antique land~~ a friendly desert community  
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone   
Stand in the desert... Near them, on the sand,   
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,   
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,   
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read   
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless(?) things,   
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed;   
And on the pedestal these words appear:   
My name is ~~Ozymandius, King of Kings~~ Mayor Pamela Winchell,  
Look on ~~my works~~ the Dog Park, ye Mighty, and despair!  
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay   
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare   
The lone and level sand _wastes and scrublands_ stretch far away.


	7. NVPW

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A week of poetry.

**Monday**

Poetry Week begins  
on a Monday. Free  
verse becomes law.

Alert citizens settle in at the Moonlite All-Nite Diner. The waitress scribbles poetry on her order ticket.

 _I dream of meadows_  
2 CFE  
1 INVSBLE PIE  
1 BLBRY PIE  
_imaginary corn growing in rows_  
the sandwastes green and flourishing  
water running clean and nourishing  
$7.00 :)  
THE SUNLIGHT CLEANS. THE SUNLIGHT BURNS.

Some prefer Big Rico's. First drafts are used as napkins. The grease soaks into the words until they are translucent, nearly floating off the page. 

Cecil presents the community calendar in iambic pentameter:  
On Monday evening, Dark Owl Records hosts  
that hallowed figure, Buddy Holly's ghost.  
Then Tuesday morning sees your cards redeemed  
though those who're too Alert are no more seen.  
You'll miss the things you love at Wednesday noon.  
Forget: if they return, it won't be soon. 

**Tuesday**

Lurid paint on the obsidian walls of the dog park.

I WOKE UP LIKE THIS  
WE TEACH  
WE TEACH GIRLS  
WE TEACH GIRLS REVOLUTION  
I WOKE UP LIKE THIS  


YOUR CHALLENGERS ARE A YOUNG GROUP FROM NIGHT VALE 

The City Council issues a statement, warning citizens to beware Feminists, feral dogs, and Beyoncé Knowles(-Carter), although they acknowledge the creative genius of the new album. They cannot deny the poetry of the sentiment; they categorically deny that illegal words on a forbidden wall count toward the mandatory word count of whichever citizen committed this crime. The City Council does not mention the worn bookmark found by the gates of the dog park, the one commemorating the Night Vale Public Library Summer Reading Program, with the word WAR written on it. Attempts to scrub off or paint over the graffiti are unsuccessful. 

**Wednesday**

Papers sift across the floor of the Moonlite All-Nite Diner. The waitress' hands and arms are covered in ink. There are a few verses on her white apron. She has an assistant now, one of the boys from the high school, to help her keep up with the distribution of coffee, pie, sandwiches, and hashbrowns. He has a dazed look in his eye and a book of classic poetry in his pocket. Patrons who run out of paper have started writing on the tables and chairs.

Science class at Night Vale Elementary School: "Jupiter has rings of stone / plus four main moons to call its own. / Its Red Spot is a type of weather. / Now write a poem (make it better). 

**Thursday**

_Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art dusty, endless, searing, sinister. THE SUNLIGHT BURNS. The cactus withers. The forest whispers and whispers and whispers until your dreams are the rustling leaves. The moon half-opens one eye in the mauve-speckled sky._

The word counts of each and every citizen are posted in front of City Hall. For now, there is the opportunity to make up for lost time.

For now.

Most of the citizens who have fallen behind choose a restaurant at which to write. No one has time to make one's own coffee and Night Vale suffers from a lack of lonely towers or secluded cottages or anywhere else that naturally encourages verse. Leann Hart runs one finger idly over the flat of her hatchet. Once upon a time, she had words at her mercy. She cut them or let them go to print. Now every newspaper box is filled with milk and her paper is a memory. Now she writes the headlines to rhyme, or breaks each line for extra impact. (Just for good measure, she changes the font to Impact.)

**Friday**

The graffiti on the wall of the dog park glows in the dark. Old Woman Josie, with the help of the angels, is writing hymns. They do not exist, therefore, they have no word counts to meet. Josie hums to herself.

**Saturday**

Carlos and his team of scientists take turns writing in shifts while someone watches the rest of the equipment. The numbers spool out and out. There is poetry in them, Carlos thinks, and he tries so very hard to put it into words. They listen to the broadcast of Night Vale Community Radio. Cecil reads a few examples from diligent citizens. They are uniformly terrifying. 

**Sunday**

The sea of paper on the floor at the Moonlite All-Nite is knee-high. The new waiter wades through with his coffee pot. His hands, his face, and his pants are covered with writing. Even the handle of the coffee pot has limericks scrawled in Sharpie on the handle and the glass.

Midnight. Across Night Vale, citizens sigh or groan. Pens and pencils clatter, dropped without ceremony. Keyboards stop clicking. Citizens sit back. They stretch aching fingers. Poetry Week is over.

For now.


	8. Dot Day I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Red dots on the things you love. Blue dots on the things you don't.

Red dot on the place where Carlos' hair swoops over his forehead.  
Red dot in the exact center of Cecil's lower lip (a scientist is precise).  
Red dot on the place at the base of Carlos' throat where his pulse is sometimes faintly visible.  
Red dot on the scar on Cecil's shoulder, a permanent reminder of a fleeting experience.  
Red dots like kisses dappling each other's bodies.

Red dot on the hood of Carlos' car.  
Red dot on the photo album Cecil found under everything else, with pictures of his mother and an unfamiliar boy with familiar features, his skinny arm around young Cecil's shoulders.  
Red dot on the comal Carlos brought with him.  
Red dot on the sash of Cecil's Scout badges and the memories they hold.

And the rest of their lives disposable. They could start over with nothing more than this. Somewhere else, if there is anywhere else. They have stopped believing in forever since the sun came up and the sunlight seared the edges of the sky (mostly void, partially stars, although seemingly fewer than there used to be, eclipsed by something)

Red dot on the door of their shared apartment  
Red dot on every piece of equipment in Carlos' lab.  
Red dot on the coffeemaker at Night Vale Community Radio, and, for sentimental reasons, the microphone.  
Red dots on their cell phones.

There are red dots left for the things they'd leave behind.

Red dot on the plaque at the station honoring the interns of NVCR.  
Red dots, hundreds of them, on the threshold and the window frames of Josie's house.  
A red dot left on its paper backing under a sparse shrub for their Secret Policeofficer.  
Red dot on the door of the wheat and wheat by-products quarantine shelter, for those whose fate will never be known.  
Red dots on the foreheads of Khoshekh and his kittens.

Glory be to god for dappled things  
All things counter, original, strange, spare;  
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)

Red dots on the things you love. Blue dots on the things you don't. Emotions stippled haphazardly over the landscape in flecks and freckles of color: zie loves me, zie loves me not.

(Blue dot on Steve Carlsberg's substandard muffin (an experiment extracted from the trash after a PTA meeting - Carlos diverted an attempt to place a dot on the hem of Steve's shirt)  
Blue dot hidden on the bottom of a Strexcorp mug  
Blue dot on the copy of a word from our sponsor, reminding listeners to mistrust the evidence of their ears)

Red dot of the light on the radio tower, now here, now gone. Night Vale protected, Night Vale sheltered. Red dot on the things you love. Red dot shining on Big Rico's, on the Ralph's, on the Night Vale Public Library, on the high school, and most of all on the radio station. Red dot. Red dot. Red dot. All night and all day. Red dot like a heartbeat, pulsing steadily, keeping the city alive.  
(but what happens in the moments between the light? Is the moonlight more blue than it used to be?)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The poem is three lines chopped roughly from [Pied Beauty](http://www.bartleby.com/122/13.html) by Gerard Manley Hopkins.


	9. Kintsugi

Frances Donaldson. Born Francis Donaldson. Claimed the pronoun _she_ as soon as she could comprehend how words shaped her. How words shaped the world. 

Grew her hair out long, copper waves to her mid-back. Cut her hair off short and lined her green eyes with gold. Learned to sew and tailored all her own suits. Her outsides don't precisely match her insides, but at least the outermost layer is flawless, inviting no questions. There have been very few questions, honestly. There are more things in Night Vale than are dreamt of in philosophy. She is, in a way, the least strange thing in her friendly desert community, but she remembers the searing looks that she has gotten other places: at university, in flea markets, at auction houses, at estate sales. Out there is where she found her anger. Out there is where she found her purpose. Now her hair is long enough to wind into a bun, and her walk sways with confidence and purpose. 

She deals in antiques. Years give them weight. Words give them worth. 

She breaks them, sometimes, because she knows that broken things are beautiful. More beautiful. Most beautiful. It is the weathering that reveals the gleam inside. It is the patina that shines the brightest. 

She puts them back together, after. They become exquisite. She glues and sands. She smooths and polishes. She paints and stains where necessary. The dry air parches the wood. She rubs the pieces with oil until they glow. And when she is done, she feels better. She feels whole and smooth and gleaming and valued. She is bronze and mahogany, porcelain and sterling. Her antiques, destroyed and restored, sell well. 

Frances Donaldson, the tall woman with the green eyes who manages the antiques mall. Frances Donaldson, brown and bold and copper, filling any chink in her armor with gold, until she is veined with it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Kintsugi](http://dicklehman.wordpress.com/2013/04/18/kintsugi-gold-repair-of-ceramic-faults-2/) is a technique by which broken ceramics are repaired by filling the cracks with gold or other precious metals.


	10. Operatic

Once upon a time, many years ago, before the puppy infestation, there was the opera.

See Josie in her gown, silk rustling as she walks (and though she is unguarded by angels, there is a halo around her). She raises her opera glasses to her eyes and cleans one lens. There is still dark in her hair, though the silver streaks grow wider every year. Her olive cheeks are still smooth, though wrinkles fan when she smiles.

Vague muffled sounds of strings seep through the walls as the orchestra warms up. They do the big operas here - _La Traviata_ , _Carmen_ , _The Marriage of Figaro_ \- and the small operas - _The Vanquishing of Desert Bluffs_ , _Bugs Bunny Sings Seville_ , _La Donna Nubile_. Everything is velvet and gilding and cream-colored wallpaper with embossed fleurs-de-lis. Everything is culture and sophistication (despite the bunny ears). Admission is five dollars for the cheap seats, but everyone has pulled out their very best. T-shirts are wrinkle-free. Khakis are pressed. Old prom dresses reappear, and old wedding gowns. A few children are wearing the kind of sneakers that light up when they take a step; they sparkle as they dash through the crowd, clutching bottles of water from the concessions (which does a very nice selection of hors d'oeuvres during the intermission). 

Cecil wears a tuxedo so old that the black of it gleams faintly purple. Josie tucks her arm through his with a smile.

"What do you think of the new season?" she asks him.

He clicks his tongue softly, as if his answer is a foregone conclusion. "It looks _perfect_ ," he tells her. "You've outdone yourself, Josie."

She beams as he escorts her to her seat. "I think _The Ten Pins of Destiny_ will be particularly successful."

"I don't see how it wouldn't be," Cecil says. "Your taste is as exquisite as ever."

"If I don't see you afterward," she says, "there's League Night."

"Yes," he says. "There will always be League Night." He pauses, as if he wants to say something else (about the drumming that has invaded all their dreams, perhaps, or the brief glimpse of an unidentified yellow helicopter, or about the lance of sunlight that seemed a little too bright), but he says nothing in the end but "Enjoy the show."

"You too," Josie tells him, settling herself firmly into her chair and raising her opera glasses to her eyes again. She sees clearly. She sees far.


	11. Scientists Tell Us

Even now, somewhere, there is snow.

Night Vale dreams of snow. Collectively. Individually. Each person shifts slightly in bed, and when they sigh, their breath hangs in the air for a moment. The feral dogs under the pilings of the bridge at the Night Vale Harbor and Waterfront Recreation Area whine quietly in anticipation. 

They dream of a world ice-glossed, sharp-edged. They dream of a town slick and clean, dust settled under a cool white blanket. Red Mesa is padded by snow, a marshmallow on the horizon; the slice of Radon Canyon is eased. The snow lies smooth under the light of the moon and the rainbow darkness of the void (partially stars). The air is crisp, tingling. It invigorates each sleeper. In their dreams, they become invincible. An ancient hymn played on a pennywhistle drifts through the air ("Blood, Blood, Blood") and each note chimes against the crystals of ice. A soft meat crown steams softly at the foot of a chalky spire in the cemetery.

Snow. Sifting down from the velvet clouds like something out of legend. It covers the sandwastes and glistens on the spare, twiggy bushes in the scrublands. There is the sense of supernatural intervention: a mischievous trickster, a wish granted, a spell cast. There should be deep, dark woods glazed and waiting, icicles hanging from sturdy branches, and wolves in the shadows. Instead, the wind stirs the snow into glinting drifts, heaped against the walls of the Ralph's and feathering across the asphalt of Route 800 until the whole landscape looks unreal, unsafe, shivery as a mirage.

The dream slips away. The sand is dull. The shrubs are not spangled with sleet. The Ralph's sits square in front of the empty lot. Red Mesa is etched against the void, stern and square. Night Vale sighs again, and kicks off the covers, too warm under the smother of cotton. But the memory of the dream stays, a sotto voce whisper in the depths of the night.


	12. There are no gardens in the desert (not without sacrifice)

I  
Night Vale.

II  
The hooded figures go mad on late summer evenings, should  
People stray from their jobs towards the dog park

Night Vale.

III  
Who makes the bloodstone circle's  
Stones turn

Who is the scientist one always  
Turning up

Who professes to be better because  
She has gained a body

Who says he is worse off as  
He has lost a head  
(Or might, if we could understand Russian)

Night Vale.

IV  
The intern girl, thin(er, or in any case, less substantial)  
Like one who has run out of beef jerky,  
Goes through  
The Dog Park. This follows:  
John Peters - you know, the farmer?  
Or something that wears his aspect

Night Vale.

V  
The man in the tan jacket  
Has a deerskin suitcase in his hand

These flies are funny  
They don't do anything do they

Losing the memory even as I speak I say

Night Vale.

IV  
Similarly, if only  
You grasped some  
Angelic misery or a  
Love like a radio host's  
(Instead, You reach toward a dark planet, lit by no sun)

Night Vale.

VII  
Where were we

A dressing-as-the-dead competition goes on  
A Scoutmaster Earl Harlan  
An Intern Maureen are  
Dancing (badly); an audience is  
Drinking, clapping 1 2 3 1 2 3

Night Vale.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> With deepest regard for Lucy Ives and her original poem, [Beastgardens](http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/247124), which is much better than my Night Vale-flavored reinterpretation.


	13. Monuments

The monument dedicated to the Apache Tracker stands out in the desert, behind the tallest cactus. It is just barely visible on the clearest day, an inorganic gleam between the cactus spines. There is no cartoonish headdress, no appropriative misrepresentation rendered in granite. It is just the man himself, done from the only photograph of him that could be found, before his transformation, when the words he spoke were comprehensible (if reprehensible) and there was nothing supernatural about him.

No one goes to the monument. No one lays flowers at its plinth, or stuffed toys, or action figures. No one lights candles. No memories stand out bright against the darkness. No memories fade to obscurity, weathered by the sun and the wind. 

\+ + + +

There is a plaque in the radio station with the names of all the interns lost in service to community radio. Cecil has a nameplate made up for each of them when he hires them. There are a few still left in his desk drawer: Paolo, Dylan, Richard, Dana, Brad, Svi. Not dead, or not known to be dead: there is some hope that Dana will return from the Dog Park and Dylan from the subway. Richard will not return from the Whispering Forest, but he whispers still. There are rumors that Paolo has joined Tamika Flynn's army of children. Brad has been in once or twice, to build a few more litter boxes for Khoshekh's kittens, but he never stays long.

Cecil wishes them the best. He wishes them life. He rattles the nameplates with his fingertips when he's thinking, like talismans. He wonders if he could cast them like bones and read the future, or if they only tell the past. 

Thank you, says the plaque, in curly gold writing.  
Thank you, Chad.  
Thank you, Leland.  
Thank you, Vithya.  
Thank you, Jesús.   
Thank you, Maureen.  
Thank you, Stacey.  
Thank you to all the interns gone before.   
Your community appreciates your service.

When no one is looking, the current intern touches his or her fingertips to the plaque and then to her or his lips. Each one does this. No one has ever told them to. None of them could say why. 

Night Vale thanks you for your service. The light on the radio tower blinks on and off without cease.

\+ + + +

Taped to the inside of the medicine cabinet in Cecil and Carlos' bathroom is a photograph of Cecil's mother, and the boy he can only presume is his brother. He gazes at it as he brushes his teeth. In the kitchen, Carlos cooks with the pans his mother gave him, and crushes spices with his grandmother's molcajete, imagining he can feel the imprint of her fingers still smooth on the tejolote. 

There are all kinds of shrines.


	14. The Glow Cloud Presides

The Glow Cloud demands _obedience_.   
The Glow Cloud demands _sacrifice_.  
The Glow Cloud demands _higher quality muffins and juices at PTA meetings_.

That is all.

For now.


	15. La Donna è mobile

Regarding our recent visitor, who so  
abruptly left: the Woman from Italy,  
that mystery lady no one seemed to know,  
is gone. Just gone. She seemed the epitome  
of mundane. She drank coffee. Her smile was slow  
and her books were thick. There was no mystery  
about her. I hope her road's more smooth than rough,  
though I saw her scooter veer toward Desert Bluffs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Ottava rima](http://www.poetryfoundation.org/learning/glossary-terms?category=forms-and-types) is an Italian stanza of eight 11-syllable lines, with a rhyme scheme of ABABABCC, and who ever wrote the poetry for that episode should be ashamed of himself.


	16. Be Kind

Rewind.

Before Tamika Flynn and her army of children and her Willa Cather and her passion and her brilliance and the fight in her.

Before Carlos and his perfect hair and his scientific reason and his teeth like a military cemetery.

Before the obsidian walls of the dog park.

Before Cecil was the one in the radio studio, his voice and your ears together in the silken night.

Before Cecil couldn't look in mirrors.

Before Cecil was an only child.

Before anybody did a slice like Big Rico's.

Before the library had anything in the biography section but a sign that said "They will be judged worthy".

Before Earl Harlan received his letter informing him of his mandatory enrollment in the Boy Scouts.

Before the Ralph's, before Night Vale Community College, before the radio station.

Before the first bloodstone circle.

Before the last group of pioneers. 

Before the first group of pioneers (and long, long before their bones became sand).

Before there was anything but the mesa and the scrublands and the sand wastes and the blazing sunlight and the nameless canyon.

Night Vale waited.

 

(Rewind until the tape catches and snaps, flap-flap-flapping in a panicked flurry, as if that will accomplish anything. Night Vale waits.)


	17. Almanac

Winter: The dry desert air scrapes across the scrublands. Days are short. Nights are eternal. Your life, like the sky, is more void than stars. Invest in wool socks. One day, there will be frost. There will be no warning.

Spring: The dry desert air scrapes across the scrublands. Do not plant flowers. Do not plant vegetables. Do not plant fruit trees. Do not invest in decorative grasses. You live in the desert. Surrender your verdant dreams. Days are warm. Nights are cool. The sun considers hanging high in the arch of the sky and then slides slowly past the horizon. Hope is an illusion. Lunchtime, as the wise man has said, is also an illusion. There is a good recipe for potato corn chowder in the cookbook you have never used that you got for Christmas five years ago. It may be too late. 

Summer: The scorching desert air pants in the salt wastes but no breeze is felt. It is hot enough on the sidewalk to sear a nice steak. The trees in Mission Grove Park still have their leaves. There is something wrong with them. Water the Whispering Forest, but sparingly. You have forgotten which of your neighbors have put down roots. Do not inundate them. They are happier now. 

Fall: The dry desert air scrapes across the scrublands. In October, perhaps, there will be a brief, intense rainstorm. The gully near the piles of rubble that were the Night Vale Harbor and Waterfront Recreation Area will fill with water. The pilings of the bridge, built of sugar cubes, will wash out. In the scrublands, every shrub and cactus will break into a violent profusion of blossom, light and color and perfume weighing down the air for hours. And then the flowers will close and die. The breeze will dry and die. The trees in Mission Grove Park will shed the last drop of water from their glossy leaves. There is something wrong with the trees in Mission Grove Park. You will, for one moment, understand the span of eternity. Expect cooling temperatures and existential despair. Russet and goldenrod are the colors for fall.


	18. And now, a word from our sponsors

Shhhhh, shhhhh. Shhhhh. Don't speak, listener. Just listen. Just your ears, open to the sound of my words. Just my words, filling the space between your ears, and now the space between your lips, and now the space inside your bones. My words inside your bones, deep deep in the marrow of you. My words, holding you up. My words, nourishing you. And now my words in your blood. Hush, listener. Can you hear it? Can you hear my whisper in your heartbeat? My words in the thick muscle of your thigh. My words pulsing under your tongue. My words tingling in your fingertips and bringing color to your cheeks as the sunlight beats down, brighter than ever. Your face is hot and getting hotter in this blistering desert summer, and every drop of sweat that splashes from your chin to your collarbone whispers my words as it falls. Can you hear? Can you? 

Coke. It's the real thing. It's the only real thing.


	19. Off the beaten path

Two roads diverged in a desert town   
and happy I could just take them both  
and be one traveler long I stood,   
willing my cells to divide at an accelerated rate,   
willing myself to be of two minds,   
willing each mind to make slightly different decisions  
(two favorite episodes of _Star Trek: The Next Generation_ ,   
two ways to make vinaigrette,   
two best grey weekend t-shirts)  
until myself and I went our separate ways.  
And the sign said "Welcome to Night Vale".

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies to Robert Frost.


	20. Fail Again Better

What could be more poetry than Carlos asprawl in Cecil's rumpled lilac sheets, more poetry than the way the shadows pool in the curve of his back, more poetry than the slow sweet rhythm of his breath?

What could be more poetry than the void astounded by the sunrise? (The void is always there, partially stars, though it yields to the sun most days.)

What could be more poetry than the victories of Tamika Flynn?

Words fail. Words fail, even for Cecil, who opens his mouth and closes it again, and settles for kissing the flat place between Carlos' shoulder blades. Tamika Flynn warms her hands by a fire and smiles at her troops. The moon says nothing, just spills silver light over the town.

Darkness.


	21. Valentine

Be my Valentine. (Officiate secret ceremonies with me, uniting young lovers for eternity. Never surrender your faith, not even in the face of certain death.)

Be my Valentine. (Settle a new planet with me. Break ground. Never go home.)

Be my Valentine. (When the dust settles, we will walk amid the rubble, hand in gloved hand.)

Be my Valentine. (Floating through space, jumbled in with so many other asteroids, silent and nearly anonymous.)

Be my Valentine. (Ship stores across the Atlantic, hoping your heft will carry you safely through the storm. The radio crackles.)

Be my Valentine. (We have so, so many stories to live.)


	22. Big Rico's

A paper menu, printed on cheap paper, folded and unfolded many times, tucked into a drawer.

BIG RICO'S PIZZA  
Enjoy any of our fine pizzas, pastas, and calzones, made with the finest ~~red winter wheat~~ cornmeal. 

Small: 7.50 Medium: 9.50 Large: 11.50 GARGANTUAN: 15.00

Add a topping for 1.50!  
Stuffed crust only 2.00 more!  
Dieting? Try our imaginary corn crust to cut those carbs!  
Or try one of our amazing pizza bowls. 

Cheese  
Pepperoni  
Eldritch Pepperoni  
Sausage  
Tentacles  
Black Olives  
Green Olives  
Infra-Olives  
 ~~Pineapple~~ (removed for being disgusting)  
Canadian Bacon  
Legit Bacon  
Soylent Teal  
A Fried Egg!!!  
Garlic  
Roasted Red Peppers  
Jalapeños  
Ghost Chili Sauce  
Ghost 

Desserts: Icebox Pie with new Potato Crust, Ice Cream Sandwich (Rice Cakes), Rico's Mama's Special Cannelloni, Strachiatella 

Drinks: Coke, Diet Coke, Coke Zero, Coke Negative, Infinity Coke, New Coke, Vanilla Coke, Iced Tea, Surgeon Pepper, Lemonade, Water 

Abandon all hope, ye who enter here...of leaving without eating our fantastic food!!!!!!! 

Hastily scribbled at the bottom of the menu: All Big Rico's Products Are Free Of Wheat And/Or Its Byproducts!!! 


	23. Red Mesa

Nobody talks much about Red Mesa. They're all too busy denying the existence of mountains.

"No mountains here!" the hikers proclaim loudly from the top of the mesa, shielding their eyes from the glare of the sun. "Not one! I've never seen a mountain, have you? I hope I never see a mountain. Mountains aren't real." It is not a difficult climb, after all these years. Someone, long ago, carved steps into the side of the mesa, or several someones. The rock felt nothing as it was chipped away at. The life of one human fades into another. But someone, or someones, cared enough to blaze a trail, and so the hikers come to announce their disbelief. 

But the mesa is there, a block on the horizon. Rabbit shelter in its shade on hot days. The shadow of the mesa is alive. There is beauty there: the gleaming scales of a lizard as it pants on the cooler sand, a few vines of night-blooming _Ipomoea_ pale against the rock, drops of dew glistening on the sparse dirt. 

Once, it dreamed of being a mountain. The wind is weathering one side unevenly. Perhaps one day, it will have slope enough to be a hill. Perhaps one day the earth will tremble enough to shake the sands down until the mesa is left lonely, the one upstanding feature in a land of fissures and canyons. 

For now, it's a feature. It's a fixture. It's very nearly invisible, so ubiquitous that Night Valeians look right past it. But perhaps one day. There are many days to come.


	24. Epistle

A letter comes from Svitz. Carlos can't read a word of the return address. He can barely read the scrawl of Cecil's name. He turns the thin, crackling envelope over in his hands, wondering. It feels hopeful, somehow, friendly. Cecil exclaims over it when he gets home, slicing open the envelope and unfolding the letter. He reads it swiftly, seemingly effortlessly, even though it looks almost runic to Carlos, peering in a restrained way.

"He didn't sign his name," Cecil says. "That's too bad. I really can't remember what it was, or what he looked like. But he says he's visiting that cabin we shared - or possibly he never left, the writing's a little blurry. Anyway, he says he remembers our time together fondly. So that's nice, isn't it?"

Carlos agrees that it's nice.

\+ + + + 

A postcard arrives from Luftnarp. It is addressed simply to "Voice". Carlos touches it and shivers. A desperate sadness seems to leak from the paper. The words are more smudge than message. Cecil clicks his tongue over it and hangs it on the fridge with a magnet that has a picture of a kitten on it (not one of Khoshekh's - no spikes or spines). 

\+ + + +

Nothing ever comes from Francia, except in the middle of the night: a huff, a whiff, a low snuffling groan that makes Carlos' heart pound as he sits bolt upright in bed. Cecil sleeps on, quietly.

\+ + + + 

"We should travel sometime," Cecil says, dreamily.

Carlos just nods.


	25. Off the Air

"You know, listeners - well. No one's listening. The mic isn't live anymore. I'm not on the air. I just like to hear the way it warms my voice. I don't sound right when I'm not talking to you, listeners. Whoever might be listening. There's always someone out there, isn't there, Night Vale? _You_ know.

"I miss Dana, or her double - I'm not sure which one she was, when she disappeared. I know we're supposed to love all the interns equally, and make sure we feed them at regular intervals, and provide them with a cushion in case they need a nap, but, listeners, I can't help it. Dana was special. She _is_ special, wherever she is. Perhaps she's made her way back to the Dog Park, which is forbidden, and must not be considered. Maybe she's in the house that doesn't exist, looking at photographs of lighthouses. Maybe she's wandering endlessly in the sand wastes. I hope she isn't. I hope wherever she is, Dana is safe and happy.

"I thought I heard her voice the other day while I was broadcasting, like an echo, but when I ran the tapes back, I couldn't hear her at all. There was only my voice, not even a whisper of Dana. I'm afraid I'll forget the way her voice sounded when she screamed. I'm afraid no one will ever make coffee that tastes like hers did. But most of all, listeners, I miss her company. Most of our interns are, well, interns. Some of them are still in high school - I mean, we can't give them actual responsibility. They make bad coffee. They run copies. They investigate the most perilous mysteries of the universe while I'm tied to my desk, talking to you. 

"Dana was different. She and I would talk, sometimes, when I wasn't talking to you. We were friends. I'm glad that even in her current state of limbo, or exile, or purgatory, or transition, that Dana feels like she can text me, even if every time I try to text back, my screen shatters or my nose starts bleeding or my vision blurs until I can't tell which letter is which, or distinguish the studio window from the studio wall. But I'm always happy to hear from her. It's good to know that she's probably still out there somewhere in the universe. I think existence would feel emptier without her in it, no matter where she is.

"So, Dana, if you're listening - if you're still able to listen - I miss you. I hope you come home. Carlos has gotten very good at making dinner on time, even if he does occasionally serve wine in Erlenmeyer flasks and sear steaks with a Bunsen burner. He says he wishes he had known you better. I hope he gets that chance, some day. I was thinking that maybe, one day, when my voice is gone, you might be the voice of Night Vale. I think people would listen. I think people would turn on their radios for you, your voice and their ears together in the gathering darkness. I think you have Night Vale in your bones. I don't think anything can keep you from coming home, Dana. Maybe for a while, but not forever. You and Night Vale belong together.

"I just hope you're not lonely, Dana. I hope you're not too hungry or too cold or too frightened. I hope you know that I'm thinking of you, that I'm wishing you all the best.

"Come home soon, Dana."

(The quiet sound of headphones being set down on a table. The squeak of a chair. The click of a door closing.)


	26. Night

A plane passes over Night Vale, briefly making the void (partially stars) an infinitesimal amount starrier. Its light is nearly imperceptible, but it does not go unnoticed. No light goes unnoticed in this world, and especially in Night Vale. The briefest flicker of candlelight is noticed. A match, lit in hope and almost immediately extinguished, is very carefully noted by the proper authorities. I have said too much, but I will say this: it is not the electric company that so eagerly monitors the use of light in general, and certain lights in particular.

The plane is there and then it is not. It has not passed out of range of your eyes, which are unused to darkness as stark as the desert's. It is gone, completely. There is no uncertainty. The airplane is no longer particulate; you can measure neither its position nor its speed. It is not Shroedinger's airplane. You could not shake out the sky and find the plane hidden in the folds of night, safe and whole. The plane is not there. It is not.

You might spare a moment of pity for the passengers, but they are beyond that, wherever they are. Pity yourself instead, pinned to the ground by forces beyond your control, pinned to your life by actions and consequences. 

For a moment, it seems as if the void is the sky of a dark planet, lit by no sun. And then you shiver and blink and it is only the void, familiarly indifferent. You breathe the cool night air. You go inside, where there is light. 

(For now, there is light.)


	27. Imaginary Corn

Listen.

Can you hear it rustling in the breeze? Close your eyes. Shut out the barren desert wastescape. Shut out the bleak horizon. Now listen again. Yes, there it is. The damp green leaves crackle like paper. The milky scent of unripe corn wafts past you. Breathe deep. Feel the edges of the leaves prickle against your bare upper arms. Feel the soft cool silk against your curious fingertips. You can almost taste the corn, kernels popping sweet between your molars, salted and buttered, summer on your tongue.

Don't open your eyes. Not ever. Live eternally in this dream of imaginary corn and fertile fields. Stand still until sand sifts over your feet, until the sun and wind wear you away.


	28. Breath

It should be seared into his memory, but Carlos can't remember which word it was that caught at his heart at long last. Nothing so simple as Cecil saying his name, he's sure, but beyond that, nothing. Was it the careful vowels of the community calendar, everything in its place? Was it the void, partially stars? Was it a haunting word from our sponsor? Carlos could never forgive himself for falling in love to Subway, but it is so very fresh.

It's possible the Glow Cloud erased the recording and he will never know or hear the word again. One of Cecil's tangents, perhaps. Life isn't like the lab. Carlos can't recreate the conditions or events of any particular day, even one that must have been eventful. Or perhaps it was a slow sweet awakening like drifting out of a dream on a Sunday morning, an accumulation of sounds and sighs and measured passion that tipped the scales imperceptibly. All he knows is that he knows, that he heard, that he knew, that he nodded to himself and began to collect evidence to support the hypothesis that Cecil meant more to him than he had the day before.

And just like gravity tumbles the apple to the ground (except, of course, on municipal no-gravity days), so his heart somersaults when Cecil speaks.


	29. This is a story

Under the void is the desert. The sand glints under the light of the moon. The moon is brighter these days. The sunlight has grown more intense. Not even midnight is untouched.

In the desert is a car. There is nothing special about the car. Do not examine the car too closely. I assure you that all you will find is the scruff of crumbs and loose hairs that accumulate in every car, a strata of petty history, non-events preserved by a careless serendipity. Look away from the car.

In the trunk of the car is a crate. Just a crate. Just wood and nails. There is a word printed on the side of the crate, or a symbol, but it is smudged and illegible. No matter. If it were important, you would be sble to read it. The crate is slightly warm, perhaps due to the uncanny strength of the sunlight lately. It smells faintly of cinnamon, warm and earthy. The trunk itself smells of cinnamon too, a stronger whiff, as if many crates had contributed their vague perfume until the scent accreted the way the crumbs did. 

In the crate is a house, or a model of a house. There was no reason to look inside the crate. It stood on its own merits. But you have crossed the line now. There is no turning back. The house looks like any of the houses in the Desert Creek housing development. Most likely, it does not exist.

Inside the house, you would swear that you see John Peters - you know, the farmer, or at least a version of what a miniature John Peters might resemble. You do not recall him looking quite so grey and lifeless. You tap on the tiny glass window, but the miniature John Peters seems mesmerized by something. You crane your neck to look through the tiny window. It appears that John Peters is gazing at a photograph of a lighthouse, which although miniscule is quite perfect, unlike art you have seen in any model house before. You cannot say where your expertise on model decor comes from, or why the photo is so striking, but you find yourself gazing at it. Your muscles are stiffening in their contorted position as you twist yourself to gaze through the tiny window at the lighthouse.

This is the void, and under it, the desert, the car, the crate, and you. The moon shivers. The sand whispers. You breathe cinnamon and wonder dreamily if you would hear the ocean, if you pressed your ear to the house.


	30. In The Bleak Midwinter

This is the truth: things are different in Night Vale.

People are different in Night Vale.

Once upon a time, Cecil went to college. Not to Night Vale Community College, but somewhere else. He was someone else there. He was someone else in Svitz, in Franchia. He is not himself unless he's home. Or, more accurately, he is not wholly himself unless he's home. His Voice is always in Night Vale.

The earth shivers and shivers as if she could twitch Desert Bluffs off the surface of her sandy skin, but in Night Vale, nothing shifts. The only thing that moves is at the corner of your eye. You can glimpse it, but you can never catch it. Carlos thumps at the panel of his seismograph. His instruments tell him what his bones cannot feel. There is something strange about the trees in Mission Grove Park, but that something eludes him. He can't remember when he stopped wanting to leave, but the confusion has become routine. He calls in an order to Big Rico's - pizza for dinner, after Cecil is done at the station. Carlos is different, here in Night Vale. Carlos is satisfied.

In the newspaper stands, the milk is always cool, even on the hottest day. It costs ten dollars per half-gallon. Thirsty citizens patiently feed a roll of quarters into the machine. 

Simone Rigadeau discovers a new kind of rock and hides it on a shelf in her closet in the Earth Sciences building.

In the vacant lot behind the Ralph's, someone has planted a garden. The seedlings push up through the friable earth. Each cluster of plants has its own tag, stuck into the dirt. Each tag says "justice".

Something howls in the forbidden dog park. Probably only a plastic shopping bag, caught in the wind until the skin of it pulled taut like the membrane of a drum and screamed at the touch of the breeze. Nothing to worry about.

There is nothing at all to worry about. All is calm. All is bright.


	31. Reflection

There are days when Flora Sandero regrets having her son's original head amputated. There are days she wishes that lightning had never struck him in the first place. Michael is not her child anymore.

Cecil washes his hands carefully in the men's bathroom at the radio station. He pauses to scratch Khoshekh and all the kittens carefully behind the ears, and then he washes his hands again. In the mirror, the kittens roll and tussle. In the mirror, there is no one at all.

There are days that Tamika Flynn wishes she could go home. But she looks into the eyes of her troops and she sees what she is, what she needs to be. The light from their fire shines on their faces. They are hungry for victory. They are hungry for justice.

Josie covered all the mirrors in her house. She has her reasons. The angels always liked them, though.

Carlos pushes his hair out of his face impatiently as he peers through the eyepiece of the microscope. He doesn't even see his reflection these days - too distracted. He has better things to do with his time than gaze at his reflection.

Sunlight glints off the moon and pours down onto the sand, which gleams softly, giving the light back as best it can. The sunlight has no place here. The darkness is soft and cool. Something shimmers and is gone, burrowed or hidden, safe in the dim. The days seem longer now. There are fewer sanctuaries.


	32. Acid-free Paper

Someone leaves a package on Leann Hart's doorstep. She picks it up when she comes home, weary from another day of not running a newspaper. She drops her hatchet in the umbrella stand (its edge is still clean) and tosses the package on to the couch. It rustles. The package, not the couch, though some days she would have wondered. 

She unwraps the package as she microwaves a burrito, because why not. She's got nothing left to lose.

There's a scrapbook inside, containing every page of the newspaper she made when she was eight. _The Night Vale Times_ , it said, and the logo was a clock face with NV as the 12. _Not bad, for a kid,_ she thinks, turning the pages. God, she put work into this thing. Leann Hart, foreign correspondent, writing from New York City. Leann Hart dispenses advice in the syndicated "Hart of the Matter" column. Incisive political cartoons by LHArt (on the menacing effects of early bedtime on young minds). Leann Hart summarizes the school board meeting and reports on the new restaurant that opened up in town - nobody does a slice like Big Rico. 

She sighs, turning the pages. Her burrito lies limp in the microwave, cooling slowly.


	33. Hope is an anomaly

It is difficult to say why Night Vale. Why, Night Vale? Why Night Vale, when the only thing resembling a valley is Radon Canyon and the days are long? Why build a friendly community in an almost uninhabitable desert? Before there was Night Vale, there was nothing (or was there?). Why here? Why then? Why that group of settlers and not the others? Surely there must have been more ready sources for the precious organs to make up soft meat crowns than the lizards and jackrabbits and scrawny deer that haunt the scrublands and the sand wastes. But Night Vale is, as perhaps it always was, some sort of dream deferred and fulfilled. 

(And whose dream? Who lies slumbering and will one day wake?)

The remains of the Night Vale Harbor and Waterfront Recreation Area are heaped in stark piles under the sun. Someone dreamed of them. Someone wished so hard they came into existence. What fevered mind conceived of a harbor in a desert? Was it a metaphor, a safe haven where none existed? Was it a mirage, the shimmer of sun on sea and the salt breeze soft and humid? Perhaps darker forces were at work, if such exist, or some scheme for draining the pockets of a trusting community.

What did the empty lot in back of the Ralph's once hold? Such potential. Now there is only a hole, and part of a banner that once congratulated two young men on their crowning achievement.

And the Pinkberry, well. Nobody speaks of the Pinkberry (although it is not forbidden in the way that the Dog Park is forbidden). 

A hot wind blows, shifting the sands. One day, this will all be sand. Perhaps tomorrow. The future is uncertain.


	34. The crowd at the ball game (as is mandated by ancient law)

The crowd at the football game  
is moved uniformly

by a malevolent spirit  
which possesses them—

all the horrifying detail  
of the plays

and the fumble, the exorcism  
the sudden touchdown—

all to no end save our boys are good football boys  
they're good boys—

So in detail they, the crowd,  
are slack-jawed, dazed

for this ball  
to be warned against

spiraled and punted—  
It is alive, venomous

the quarterback smiles grimly  
and words cut—

"This game is sponsored by  
Strexcorp Synernists Inc.  
STREX. Go. Fight. _Win_."

It is the Inquisition, the  
Revolution

It is Night Vale itself  
that lives

day by day in them  
desperately—

The war is  
over, except

There is a threat hanging  
hazy in the air, 

Not a small threat—  
not miniature.

This is  
the power of Tamika Flynn

This was  
the promise of Michael Sandero

It is summer, it is the solstice  
the crowd is

cheering, the crowd is chanting  
in unison

_Night Vale. Night Vale_  
like a stuttering heart

permanently, seriously  
without thought

There will be  
retribution.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies to [William Carlos Williams](http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/174766).


	35. Chapter 35

Silence. 

The radio fizzes. The only thing running is the all-night numbers station, mumbling into the dark with the voice of nobody. 

Cecil sleeps with his shoulders pressed to Carlos' in the bed that they share in the house that they share in the life that they share. Under the window, their Sheriff's Secret Police deputy works contentedly on his novel, scribbling away, half-hidden by a mesquite tree.

Josie doesn't sleep much these days. The night is safer than the day, but not by much. She dozes in front of the muted television, waiting for the angels to come back. She is still taping reruns of _The West Wing_ for them.

The sand wastes are utterly still. Even the Whispering Forest has quieted. 

This is peace. Savor it while you can (if you can). Good night, Night Vale. 

Good night.


	36. \ˈān-jəl\

Josie waits.  
The angels will come.  
They will come if she waits long enough.  
She has already waited long enough once.

The City Council came to her house once, out by the car lot. They tried to tell her that angels don't exist. They offered to take her to the abandoned mine shaft for treatment. "You're seeing angels," they said in unison. "Claude Monet, same thing. It's a simple procedure. You won't see any angels, afterward, because angels don't exist. And we have HBO."

She said no from behind her closed door. She said if she wanted to see _Boardwalk Empire_ , she could wait for it to come out on DVD. 

She said nothing about the angels, but she did blot away a single involuntary tear.

\+ + + + 

The City Council would like  
to remind you   
about the tiered heavens   
and the hierarchy   
of angels.

The reminder is   
that you should not   
know anything   
about this. The structure   
of heaven and the angelic   
organizational chart are privileged   
information, known   
only to City Council members   
on a need  
-to-know basis.

Please,   
do not speak   
to or acknowledge any   
angels   
that you may come across   
while shopping at the Ralph’s,   
or at the Desert Flower Bowling Alley & Arcade Fun Complex.   
They only tell   
lies and do not   
exist.

Report all angel sightings   
to the City Council for   
treatment.

\+ + + + 

(Of course the heavens are tiered. Otherwise, why would it echo so? Sometimes you hear the laughter ringing out for days. Other times, a single sigh lasts for an eternity.)

(As for the angelic hierarchy, well. Not everyone has the privilege of changing a light bulb, of using one's own hands to ease the journey of one whose crusade will be long and grueling. Fortunately, there was space for several hands to steady the ladder.)

\+ + + + 

There are still stains in the break room at Night Vale Community Radio from Vithya's sobbing: on the arm of the couch, on the wall by the microwave from when she buried her face in her arm as she reheated her lunch, near the door from the day she stood with her hand on the knob and could not move for the way sorrow wracked her body. "Angels do not exist," she said, over and over like a mantra. 

(Angels exist, Cecil whispers now and then, because there is nothing else he can do to honor her.)  
(He does not weep.)  
(He is not chosen.)  
(Thank heaven.)


	37. home

A wall. A roof. A floor. A door. Several walls, in fact, and several doors, but the general idea is the same all around. 

A bed. Two people, under a quilt sewn by Cecil's mother in the hazily-remembered past.

A ficus. The promise of a dog. 

A coffee pot. Two mugs. 

A solid present. An assumed future (assuming there is a future).

Life is, as ever, tenuous and unpredictable, but this is not, and that is enough.


	38. Dot Day II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hope.

Every day that Carlos is gone, Cecil adds another red dot to the frame of the photograph beside their bed: Carlos, smiling precisely, and Cecil, his grin immeasurable.

Love is a particle and a wave all at once. It cannot be measured without changing it. It cannot be measured without changing the one who measures it. 

The red dots overlap like scales. Soon they will wash over the photograph, inundating the two of them in a sea of red.

"Good night, Carlos," Cecil says dreamily, late at night, sticking a red dot to his phone just in case.

"Good night, Cecil," Carlos tells him. "I love you. I'll see you soon, I hope."

"I hope so," Cecil says. 

"Put a red dot on yourself for me," Carlos tells him.

"You remembered," Cecil says, unspeakably charmed.

"Of course," Carlos says. "A scientist never forgets the traditions of his home."

"I love you," Cecil says.

"We'll talk tomorrow," Carlos tells him. "A scientist needs to rest."

"Sweet dreams," Cecil says, "and do good science," but they listen to each other breathe for a long, long moment before hanging up.


	39. limbo

It isn't that Carlos doesn't want to come home.

It isn't that he doesn't miss Cecil. He misses Cecil, consciously, approximately once every five seconds that he isn't actively working. He misses Cecil unconsciously all of the time, like the ache of his jaw after his wisdom teeth were removed, a space nothing else can fill.

But there is so much science to do. There are so many things in the desert otherworld to investigate, so many hypotheses to test, so much data to gather. Carlos can quantify those things. He cannot do the same with Cecil, unquantifiable Cecil; he can measure Cecil's height and weight and volume, number his bones (hypothetically) one to two hundred and six, find the pitch and cadence of Cecil's voice, but he cannot add up all of those data points and find Cecil. 

(He is aching too from the door closing. He is aching from the shock of his banishment from Night Vale. He had thought (with, he realizes, little data to back it up) that he had made a life there. He had thought to call himself a citizen of Night Vale.)

It is easier to sink into the comfort of numbers, of measurements, of observations, than it is to trudge through the desert day by day looking for a door that may not open for him. It has been weeks. Carlos understands that if something cannot be observed in initial explorations, it may never be observed at all. The desert otherworld isn't ideal as a laboratory; it lacks his machines with their pulsing lights and their steady urgent readouts (they turned off the audible alarms the first day, when nothing would ever stop trying to alert them of anomalies, of dangers).

He calls. They talk. Carlos does his best to caress Cecil with his voice, since he cannot touch Cecil skin on blissful skin. Cecil whispers to Carlos until Carlos would say (hypothetically) that they are the only two people in any worlds. But it doesn't wrap Cecil's arms around him, and it doesn't conjure up any old oak doors, brass knobs gleaming now and then not with the slow blink of the light up on the mountain.

A scientist is self-reliant. That's the first thing a scientist is. 

A scientist does science. That's the first thing a scientist does. And everything is science except the unmeasurable absence of a loved one, the incalculable distance between them as their breaths mingle on the phone.

In the distance, the rumbling begins again.


End file.
